We are 1.8 billion people on this planet menstruating, on average within 450 cycles a lifetime, ~30-80ml menstrual effluent shed per cycle. Menstruation is a an information-rich essential process of the female body, but what did we do the past hundreds of years?
We have treated this healthy, bodily process as something to conceal as quickly as possible. Because of the huge menstrual stigma and the general neglect of female bodies within medical research we are now facing a huge gender data gap.
If we’d put all the effort in menstrual blood research instead of concealing MB, we could have already closed a big part of the gender data gap. Why? Because menstrual blood could be used as a non-invasive, at-home monthly self check-up. But we’ve ignored this tremendous potential and instead we’re trying to cover up menstruation with blue flowers and pleasant smells.
Why? Using women’s bodies as a form of control to maintain power structures has always been en effective strategy. The silence around menstrual blood was never a scientific limitation. It is a political one.
When we reclaim the power over our own body through knowledge we can rewrite the narratives and open up opportunities for a fairer healthcare future. Throughout my research on Menstrual Blood I came across so muh interesting feminist literature on the stigmatisation of menstruation and the female body that I decided to combine my feminist and scientific research on menstruation.
I collected all my findings and wrote a feminist essay called "Bleed Baby". This work has the aim to not only spread awareness about the topic but to to create menstrual literacy in order to reclaim the power of menstrual blood as a tool for empowerment.
I am planning to publish the publication soonish.
